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    Renegade Robot
    Renegade Robot
    Renegade Robot
    Ebook61 pages1 hour

    Renegade Robot

    By "Tom" "Lichtenberg"

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    It's the end of the world as we know it, when the dreaded Singularity finally occurs and happens to be captured, live on tape, by agents of the Frantic News Network, which freaks out, as usual, and causes a lot of trouble for the mild-mannered nanobot exterminator who happens to get caught in the crossfire.

    LanguageEnglish
    Publisher"Tom" "Lichtenberg"
    Release dateJul 31, 2010
    ISBN9781452395692
    Renegade Robot
    Author

    "Tom" "Lichtenberg"

    Author of curiously engaging novellas of the science-fiction-y, post-modern-y, absurdist variety

    Read more from "Tom" "Lichtenberg"

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      Book preview

      Renegade Robot - "Tom" "Lichtenberg"

      Renegade Robot

      by Tom Lichtenberg

      Copyright 2010 by Tom Lichtenberg

      Smashwords Edition Copyright 2010 by Tom Lichtenberg

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If youre reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

      One

      Life is no argument, for the conditions of life could include error - F. Nietzsche

      It was no job for a superhero, but Wyatt Lorenzo knew what he was signing up for, so even when people began to taunt him with names like Jani-Tor and Scrub-Or, he just laughed and shrugged it off. Someone had to take care of the 'do-gooders' before it was too late. He liked to blame it all on his virtual best friend, the one who was forever texting him into doing things he did not want to do, from phoning Jan Johnson in the eighth grade, to pulling a certain stunt on a certain day in high school, to taking this job with his actual best friend, Jalopy, and so he had followed the call of the text and it had led him to this day, where he found himself, in his mid-twenties already, a gainfully employed Botnik in the service of Mankind, living alone on the outskirts of Rubble Land, doing his part to stem the tide of correction.

      Wyatt had discovered the neighborhood while on a mission with his team to clean out some rampaging CGB’s (concrete gobbler bots). These little guys, shaped like fat gray packing tubes about nine inches high and five inches thick, with pairs of extensible claws reaching out of the top and bottom and a thin slit down the middle on one side, were designed to break down buildings of concrete, glass and steel, excreting nothing but nitrogen-rich soil and oxygen. Once you discover them it's usually too late to save their target building, but they're fairly docile and easily dismantled. A little Cherry Coke goes a long way towards their final deactivation. Wyatt could’ve wished they'd let the little buggers do a little more damage before they'd completely neutralized the infestation; as it was, the locale was still littered with wreckage-filled lots only partially consumed. Still, the rents were cheap and the remaining structures were relatively safe, for the moment.

      Two of the team weren't very respectful to Wyatt; Randy, the team leader, and Hazel, his right-hand man. They'd been doing this work since the early days of the first hints there might be a problem with the self-generating helpbots originally designed by Western Lightwave. Randy especially liked to claim he'd seen it coming all along, proof positive to him that nothing good ever came out of California. He was a short, fat loudmouth from The South who sported a sweaty fu manchu mustache and a prized Esso t-shirt most days of the week. His compadre Hazel was equally matched in stature and stoutness, and did her best to keep up with his vocal volume as well. A lot of people assumed they were married or siblings or both, but nobody knew for sure. Randy was a devoted follower of the Frantic News Network, and often spoke in a language Wyatt barely understood, using phrases like don't bite that apple when there wasn't even any food around. They would come screaming up in the liquid-deathmobile first thing before sunrise, hoses clanging and dangling off every side of the bright blue tanker truck, blaring the horn and broadcasting to the whole block that 'lazy bones lorenzo better get his scrawny ass in gear or it was gonna cost him sure enough'. More times than not, Wyatt made sure he was out there on the remains of the sidewalk before they could pull that stunt.

      The final member of the team was his impossibly tall skinny friend, Jalopy. With his six foot nine inch bony frame, his pink shades, camouflage coat, khaki shorts and high top sneakers, he was the opposite of incognito. Jalopy was surprisingly quiet, though. You had to listen closely to pick up any of his conversational tidbits. So it was mostly Randy and Hazel making all the noise as the tanker patrolled its officially suspect areas five days a week from dawn till noon. The team was tasked with the easement, as they called it, of any reprobate or otherwise retrograde Class A, B or C type IMA’s (intelligent mechanical assistants). It was everything a morbid cynic could dream of. Unfortunately for him, Wyatt was neither. He was merely a dreamer and a drifter who found himself wherever he happened to go. Jalopy was like that, too, and both also shared an ability to

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